Anastasia Novykh - Sensei of Shambala

The Teacher thought for a little while and replied, “Yes, there is such a technique, although you will need a partner for it. Best of all is to practice it sitting in the lotus pose. You should do the following: on the level of your head suspend a soft tennis ball on a rope, so that during its swinging or pushing by a partner the trajectory of its flight would coincide with the location of your head. Your objective is simply to learn to dodge it without using your common organs of control in the surrounding space, and to rely more on intuition. You should perceive the ball in its spiritual interpretation. Try to feel the object approaching the back of your head and, guided by your internal intuition, move your head before it hits you. The most important thing is to train your mind, and again we got back to our subject,” smiled Sensei. “Speaking frankly, you should bring your mind to a complete calmness so that it reminds you of the mirror-like surface of a lake. And in that full silence of your consciousness, the approaching object, in our case the ball, will be like a pebble thrown into that glassy surface, causing ripples, or like a boat, call it as you wish. But it will be cleaving your space. All the rest that is located farther, such as people standing in the circle, will be like trees or people on the shore, whatever you prefer. And you are the center of that lake. You should learn to feel any vibration on your surface, any penetration in your space. Finally you will learn to feel the approaching alien object and all that’s happening around.”

Andrew, who stood with us next to Sensei, asked, “Can we also train in this way?”

“If you have such a desire, certainly, train yourselves,” answered Sensei.

“And in this case, what kind of a perception will it be?” Volodya asked.

“Almost the same as the one during this demonstration. The most important thing is to come out with your consciousness over the boundaries of your body.”

“And how is that?” Andrew didn’t grasp the idea.

“Well, I’ll give you this simple example. Any human, when he sits down, relaxes, and tries to calm his thoughts, will start to feel that his consciousness is widening and comes far out over the boundaries of his body. Consciousness becomes three-dimensional. It covers enormous spaces. In this case, you simply limit it with a certain place. In the example that I showed you, it was the sports hall. Although, if you train hard enough, you will be able to feel what is going on at the other end of your district. Actually, it’s not that difficult.”

“In other words, the most important thing in the exercise with the ball is to achieve a complete calmness of the mind, like in the example with the lake?” Andrew asked again.

“Absolutely correct, and make an effort so that not a single thought could enter that space.”

“That’s hard.”

“Hard, but possible.”

“Stas said that the style of the ‘Old Lama’ is very ancient. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“Does history record the names of those who mastered it?” asked Kostya.

Sensei smiled, thinking about something and answered, “You might know only Buddha. And, of course, his first followers.”

“Buddha?” said Kostya, surprised. “But I thought that he had a different kind of philosophy, the philosophy of good. Why did he need to fight?”

“Even good people may need to fight,” Sensei answered calmly. “But to master that art doesn’t always mean to attack someone. For them it was sort of a stage in spiritual development.”

Thus our additional training ended, and again we became witnesses to the valuable knowledge and abilities of Sensei. Our delight was endless. Having changed, we awaited the others near the sports hall. When the crowd came out to the street, Eugene glanced at Volodya and exclaimed with horror, “My God! Oho… What a shiner you have, beautiful.”

At these words everybody directed his attention to Volodya. His eye was completely swollen, turning into a big, black spot.

“Don’t worry,” Eugene tried to cheer him up, puffing up his chest, and declaring, “Bruises make men more attractive!”

Volodya replied with a smile, “And how about you, don’t you want to become more attractive?”

Everybody burst out in laughter.

“Of course he wants to. And I’ll be like a witness in that joke,” Stas was developing the situation. “When he was asked, ‘Did you see how one man hit another on the head?’ he replied, ‘I don’t know if I saw, but I heard a sound, as if somebody hit something empty’.”

Victor added, “And I will be a second witness. If I am asked why I didn’t come to help the victim during the fight, I will answer with a clean conscience, ‘How could I know who the victim was when they were fighting with each other so hard?!’”

Another wave of laughter rolled through our crowd.

“Come on, guys,” Eugene mimicked everyone. “Your jokes are good only for soldiers in barracks. Sensei, did you see, I hardly said a word, and they have already fabricated a case!”

Joking and poking fun at each other, the guys moved on. The weather was calm, and the sky was covered with scattered stars. Enjoying the evening cool after the intensive training, we didn’t noticed that our group was a little stretched out. Kostya and Tatyana had gone far ahead. Volodya, Eugene, and Stas dragged somewhere behind. And Victor, Andrew, Slava, Yura, and I were walking in the middle with Sensei chattering about trifles.

Just around the corner, we came face-to-face with a group of miners, about eight of them, all considerably drunk. They seemed to have seriously angered Kostya in passing, as when we approached them, his face was red with rage. Kostya kept snapping at them, obviously annoyed with the drunks. Andrew added fuel to the fire in an attempt to defend his friend. The most impatient of the miners rushed towards the two to fight. Andrew and Kostya dashed at him. But Sensei arrived just in time and stopped them, addressing the miners, “Calm down, men! Why should you curse here, in the presense of women? Noblemen do not swear.”

“What are you talking about?” A furious miner croaked, having seized Sensei. “Move along or else I’ll break all your bones!”

At this point we could not stand it any more and moved in a crowd to the instigator. Even I flew into a rage towards these drunkards and was ready at that moment to tear them to pieces. The senior guys ran up to us, but unexpectedly Sensei stopped all our attempts and gave a sign to Victor for everyone to leave. We grumbled with indignation. But Victor, Stas, Eugene, and Volodya took us away like diligent shepherds leading a flock of sheep without letting us stop.

I kept turning around, waiting for the Teacher to show off one of his supertricks against eight enemies. But Sensei only stood there smiling and explained something with gestures as if he were making excuses. When I glanced back the next time, I saw that the smiling miners were fraternizing with him, saying goodbye to him as good friends. “Well, really!” I thought. “What is the point of practicing Kung-fu for so many years?” Judging by the puzzled responses of my friends, I was not the only one who thought that.

When Sensei came up to us, Andrew said with indignation, “Why did you make excuses to them? They were the ones who bothered us and stirred up trouble. We should have beaten them to teach them not to do it again. If you hadn’t stopped me, I would…”

“Surely,” Sensei interrupted him, “if I hadn’t stopped you, they would have been seriously injured, not only in their soft tissues but also in their organs, and they might have even gotten a concussion of the brain. Do you realize that these are men who have families at home, who are probably the only bread-winners of these families? Do you realize that they are miners? Have you ever been in a mine?”

“No,” Andrew replied.

“I have been there… These guys, whom you wanted to break to pieces, they go down to a mine like to hell, to a depth of up to one kilometer and more. Just imagine the pressure on their bodies. Not to mention,” Sensei started to list on his fingers, “heat, lack of oxygen, very harmful methane… And despite all of this, they realize that they risk their lives every second. Because any moment they can be crushed, injured, or even killed. Injuries happen regularly in the mine. And people take it hard. Their mind is always on the brink, so to say, at the breaking point. This state of mind is comparable with the state of mind of soldiers on the front line during the war. That’s why Stalin used to say, ‘The mine is the second front.’ Do you know why they drink? In order to relieve somehow this stress, this internal feeling of permanent fear. That is why highly qualified specialists in psychology and medicine should work with miners for them to overcome this psychological block. But of course they don’t get this help. That’s why many of them drink.”

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